opposites
by champion lyra
Summary: He hated how complicated his mind was when it came to her. —SilverLyra, SoulSilverShipping. Angst with a happy ending.


**Notes**

Was cleaning up my external hard drive in my boredom and found this old thing. Rewrote it into third person and touched it up a bit, and here we are. Apparently this was first written in 2014, so in essence, this is four years old now! How crazy. I have many more SoulSilver things that I need to touch up, so please look out for those as well! Whenever I get around to touching them up, that is haha.

Prompt table was taken from the LJ community 10iloveyous, before it went away. I don't know what table this was - my document labeled it opposites, but I'm not sure if that was me or the actual name. Anyways, enjoy!

* * *

 **i. too much**

Losing was something Silver could handle if he absolutely had to, but this was too much. The girl had practically stalked him all the way from New Bark Town, where he had stolen his first Pokemon - even someone like Silver couldn't stop his heart from speeding up at the thought of his very own Pokemon - and now had just beaten him in a battle. With a timid, pathetic looking Cyndaquil, at that.

Nothing had been going right for him today. It was all just too much.

* * *

 **ii. simple**

Silver had assumed it would be simple enough, to deal with the girl. Insult her, battle her, win, take her money, and then leave - the way things were supposed to go. He certainly didn't expect her to win, take his money, and then lecture him on how he treated his Pokemon. A simple win. That's all Silver had wanted.

He had the type advantage, he had enough Pokemon on his team that were high enough levels, and Silver _certainly_ wasn't weak.

"Lyra, shut up already," he said irritably, his eyes narrowed in on the girl in front of him. The girl in question practically shrieked back at him before going off on another lecture in her abrasive voice. Normally, Silver would've just taken off, but the stupid girl was healing his Pokemon _for him_.

Why couldn't anything ever be simple?

* * *

 **iii. friends**

Shock was an understatement of the century, to Silver. He had never expected Lyra to call him _friend_ , so easily like that. It's not that he didn't think of her in the same way - though he would have to be tortured to admit that - he just hadn't expected that from her. Lyra was excitable, a sweet girl who did her best to help everyone she came in contact with. Silver was…

Silver knew what he was like. Brash, rude, kind of an asshole. A far cry from the optimist Lyra always was.

The first time she called him a friend, he couldn't help the small smile that crept onto his face. She returned it, full wattage, and Silver almost chuckled. It felt like, for the first time, he was doing something right.

* * *

 **iv. dream**

Silver awoke in a cold sweat at the Pokemon Center, gasping for air. He shot up like a rocket from the bed, only to see a familiar face looking at him worriedly.

"Silver? Are you alright?" Lyra's voice was softer than usual, it's almost rough quality not making its way to you through the darkness.

"Just a bad dream," he said, settling back into the bunk. _Just a bad dream._ Feeling the softness of the Pokemon Center pillows and sheets definitely helped. It was a good reminder that he was no longer in a Rocket base. No longer with his father.

Lyra asked if he wanted to talk about it, but Silver said no, telling her to go back to sleep. She didn't need to know about all the horrid things his father had done to him yet. Maybe not ever. They had just started to become friendly with each other recently, after all. No need to go scaring her away quite so soon.

Somehow, though, Silver thought she wouldn't be scared away at all. He fell asleep to that thought, his dreams much more pleasant this time around.

* * *

 **v. indifference**

At first, Silver figured he should try and be happy for his rival. She had beaten Lance and become the Champion of the Johto Region, after all. That was an impressive task for anyone of any age, but especially for Lyra - she was only fifteen, after all.

He found, though, that he was too frustrated to be happy for her. Too envious: she always seemed to obtain what he could not. Instead, he forced himself into a state of indifference.

At first.

Quickly, Silver found that he was not just envious of her new title, as he had originally thought. Oh, no, this feeling was much worse. He was jealous that she would stop paying attention to him, now that she was Champion.

He couldn't let Lyra know the truth. His mask was something he fell back on so easily, it almost seemed like it hadn't been slipping off at all before.

Her visits to the Dragon Den became less and less frequent. Silver told himself that was okay.

* * *

 **vi. not enough**

It had been three months since Lyra had become Champion, and Silver found that he was not seeing her nearly enough. She had been going through all the gyms in Kanto, she told him on the phone the other day. She was looking to become the Champion of that region as well.

"Is one region not enough for you?" He sneered, not even trying to hide his anger. Anger was something he was familiar with. This, he could do.

"No, Silver, it's not enough," she responded, her voice thick with an emotion Silver couldn't place. Lyra hung up after all, not even bothering to say goodbye.

Silver threw his PokeGear against the Pokemon Center wall. The hurt he felt was ridiculous, he told himself, but he couldn't seem to make it go away. This, he could not do.

* * *

 **vii. complicated**

Things got even worse for him and Lyra in the coming months. She had once called him a friend, but Silver doubted that she would even classify him as that anymore. She had, of course, bested all eight of the Kanto gyms - a surprise to absolutely nobody - and had decided her next challenge was to face Red.

He saw her, by chance at Tohjo Falls - _not_ that he was seeking her out, he kept telling himself as he traveled through the places he knew in Kanto - and Lyra told him that she was going to climb Mt. Silver.

It didn't sit well with Silver. Nothing about this did; going up such a dangerous mountain, finding _Red_ , the boy who ruined your childhood, climbing up the mountain where he disappeared to after becoming disenchanted with being Champion. All of it screamed at Silver to stop her, to not let her go.

He hated this feeling. He hated _feeling_. Silver missed his mask of indifference, but even more so, missed how things used to be - running into Lyra every so often, slowly becoming her friend while they both went about Johto collecting badged. He hated how complicated his mind had become when it came to her.

* * *

 **viii. strangers**

It hurt so much to think about, now.

He and Lyra could've easily been strangers at this point. Silver hadn't heard from the girl in two months, since that last fateful talk on Tohjo Falls, and he was beginning to wonder if he had ever meant anything to her at all.

It was ridiculous, really. Silver? Meaning anything to anyone? The thought would've made him laugh before meeting Lyra. But the girl had made him think, had made him feel. It seemed cruel to think that he hadn't had any effect on her at all; but that was Lyra. She effected everyone around her, but she was only one person.

She couldn't care about everyone, no matter how much Silver wished she could.

* * *

 **ix. nightmare**

The next three months were a nightmare for Silver. He was stuck in a terrible limbo; he had lost his goal. He had lost someone he cared about - for the first time in so, so many years. So much of those months involved fighting himself, debating whether or not to think about Lyra at all, to finally, finally deciding to go up on that stupid mountain and drag her back home.

Seeing her again was like breathing for the first time in months. His lungs ached at the sight of her.

"It's time to go home," Silver sneered when he saw her, but his voice had lost its heat on the way up. His throat was sore, his legs ached, and all his anger and resentment had melted out of him the moment he laid on her again. Everything in him screamed at him to _look at her, she's okay, she's-_

Lyra, to her credit, nodded along, and after a quick apology to Red for leaving, she was waiting for him on the pathway down.

Lyra, to her credit, nodded along almost in a daze. She packed her stuff together in that similar daze, seemingly unaware of Red's eyes on her the entire time. Silver, also to his credit, let them say their goodbyes; a goodbye without words.

Silver's _I missed you_ was lost to the wind of the mountain, but somehow he thought she heard it, anyways.

* * *

 **x. love**

It had been three weeks, since then, and Lyra was slowly adjusting to a normal life on the ground. Silver, despite his advice being delivered in his trademark angry tone, was there for her the entire time; coaxing her back to an average lifestyle. However, he refused to coddle her. Lyra was still Lyra - which meant she was still the Champion of not one, but two regions. She was strong, he would remind himself whenever she looked lost.

She _had_ lost herself, she told him, once she had defeated Red. She could understand perfectly why he secluded himself from everyone, on top of that lonely mountain. Being there became an awful vortex, for her - who was there to beat now that she had beaten him?, she would often ask herself.

"Me," Silver responded to her question every time she had asked. "You haven't seen me in months. Maybe I can give you a run for that title of yours."

It wasn't love, yet - it wasn't even really friendship anymore. They had a lot to repair. But it was a start. It was something, something tangible. It kept Lyra on the ground, off the mountain, and it kept Silver sane and productive. It kept them both working, both training hard, both _happy_.

Neither would mind staying like this, they realized.

It wasn't love - not yet, anyway.


End file.
